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MTN Nigeria has disconnected 8.6 million lines from its network to comply with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) rule that requires SIM cards to be linked to the National Identity Number (NIN). This was disclosed in MTN’s first-quarter (Q1) 2024 financial report.
The company explained that the affected lines were either linked to more than five unverified NINs or had users who didn’t submit their NIN. However, MTN mentioned that the NCC extended the deadline for customers with fewer than five lines linked to unverified NINs until July 31, 2024.
MTN’s CEO, Karl Toriola, said, “While we had to fully block 8.6 million subscribers due to the NIN-SIM rule, we kept the overall impact minimal. Our total number of subscribers only dropped by 2 million, ending the quarter with 77.7 million subscribers.”
Toriola noted that the company’s customer retention programs helped reduce losses and keep the number of active subscribers relatively steady.
Data from the NCC showed that total active mobile subscriptions across all networks in Nigeria dropped from 224.4 million in December 2023 to 219 million in March 2024 as a result of the NIN-SIM policy.
Additionally, MTN saw a small decline in its data subscribers by about 78,000, bringing the total to 44.5 million. Despite this, the company reported increased activity, with voice traffic up by 5.1% and data traffic growing by 40.6%, thanks to rising demand for these services and ongoing improvements in network quality.
